Monday, May 27, 2013

fireworks

Mr
Loesser lies propped up in bed, a plastic basin on the floor, a box of tissues
and a child’s beaker of water on a side table. He barely stirs when we come
into the room; his voice, when he talks, is so thin and indistinct it could be
coming from his reflection in that dressing table mirror on the other side of
the room.

‘So
sorry to be a nuisance,’ he says. ‘But I feel so wretched.’

His son
is sitting on the bed next to him.

‘Dad
hasn’t been well the last few days,’ he says, stroking his hand. ‘Nausea and
vomiting, possibly haemetemesis, some epigastric pain, constant, non-radiating,
a bit of a temperature, general lassitude and general all-round fed-up-ness.’
He pulls a grumps face, then adds: ‘I’m a GP, by the way.’

‘And a good
one, too,’ says Mr Loesser with a weak smile.

We read
the notes the out of hours doc left, then help Mr Loesser into our chair.

‘Can you
believe I used to be a rower?’ he says, then retches into the bowl.

Outside
in the corridor, a group of elderly women are lined up. They’ve heard the
ambulance arrive and have come to see him off.

Bye, bye, Eric.

All the best, love.

You’ll be back in no time.

Chin up.

Don’t forget we need you for the
bridge match on Wednesday.

Toodle-oo.

He gives
them all a royal wave as we process towards the lift.

*

I pull
up at A&E just as a massive fireworks display kicks off nearby. A hundred
brilliant points of light rush up into the sky above the hospital, booming and
crackling, flowering, scattering, then drifting away on long tendrils of smoke
before the next burst takes their place. The noise of it all reverberates
through the air.

When I
open the back door, Mr Loesser Jnr. pauses on the top step, looking up, then
jumps down and moves to the side as I lower the tail lift.

‘Do you
know what the fireworks are for?’ I ask him.

‘They’re
for my father!’ he says. ‘They’re for my father, coming to hospital!’